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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The recent election of former soccer player Ahmed Eid
Alharbi as the first freely chosen head of the Saudi Football Federation (SFF)
in a country that views polling as an alien Western concept masks regional
fears of the impact of popular revolts that have swept the Middle East and
North Africa. It also constitutes the first time that autocratic rulers have
sought to reduce their identification with soccer in a break with a tradition
that employs the beautiful game in a bid to polish their tarnished images.

“Words such as freedom of choice, equality, human rights,
rational thinking, democracy and elections, are terms we came to view with high
concern and suspicion. We treat them as alien ideas that are trying to sneak
within our society from the outside world. But last week an amazing and
irregular event took place, in one of our sporting landmarks. The members of
the General Assembly of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) have
elected through popular voting, their first president,” wrote columnist
Mohammed AlSaif in the Arab News.

Mr. Alharbi, a former goalkeeper of Al Ahli SC, the soccer
team of the Red Sea port of Jeddah, who is widely seen as a reformer and
proponent of women’s soccer in a country where women are fighting to gain the
right to play football, narrowly won the election widely covered by Saudi media
to become the Saudi federation’s first ever elected leader.

“Saudis were witnessing for the very first time in their
lives a government official being elected through what they used to consider as
a western ballot system. People eagerly followed a televised presidential
debate between the two candidates the previous day,” Mr. AlSaif wrote.

The election took place at a time in which the need for
political in addition to economic reform is increasingly being openly debated
in the kingdom while the government is cracking down hard on its critics.

With unrest simmering among the predominantly Shiite population
of Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province as well as among the families of
political prisoners, the government has sought to fend off popular protest with
a $130 billion program to shore up public services such as housing and create
employment, particularly in the security sector.

In a commentary in Arab News, columnist Khaled al-Dakheel
warned that economic reform and addressing social needs should “be followed by
other steps of reform dealing with political issues, such as elections,
representation, the separation of powers, activation of the Allegiance
Commission, freedom of expression, the independence of the judiciary, and
making all people equal before the law, etc. The necessity of political and
constitutional reform is due to the fact that the positive impact in people’s
economic reforms, especially financial, is usually temporary because of the variable
nature of their economic and social circumstances,” Mr. Al-Dakheel said.

The writer laid out a program for political and
constitutional reform in a country that identifies the Quran as its
constitution. Mr. Al-Dakheel’s program included an overhaul of the country’s
bloated bureaucracy; ensuring that the longevity of long-serving officials,
many of whom are members of the royal family, is based on merit rather than
position, expansion of the powers of the country’s toothless Shoura or Advisory
Council to gradually transform it into an elected legislature authority;
tackling issues of unemployment, foreign workers’ rights and corruption; and
diversification of the economy.

In the meantime, authorities this week arrested prominent
writer and critic Turki al-Hamad for criticizing Islamists in a series of
tweets and calling for reform. Mr. Al-Hamad charges that the Islamists “have
distracted us with nonsense that we forgot the important issues, compared Islamism
to Nazism and effectively called for reform of Islam. “Our Prophet has come to
rectify the faith of Abraham, and now is a time when we need someone to rectify
the faith of Mohammed,” Mr. Al-Hamad tweeted.

Activist and website designer Raif Badawi was arrested in June
and is on trial for violating Islamic values, breaking Sharia law, blasphemy
and mocking religious symbols on the internet. Mr. Badawi allegedly insulted
Islam by allowing debate on his website, Free Saudi Liberals, about the
difference between popular and political Islam.

Fan pressure forced Prince Nawaf bin Feisal earlier this to
resign as head of the SFF following Australia's defeat of the kingdom in a 2014
World Cup qualifier. His resignation broke the mold in a nation governed as an
absolute monarchy and a region that sees control of soccer as a key tool in
preventing the pitch from becoming a venue for anti-government protests,
distracting attention from widespread grievances and manipulating national
emotions. It also marked the first time that a member of the ruling elite saw
association with a national team's failure as a risk to be avoided rather than
one best dealt with by firing the coach or in extreme cases like Saddam Hussein's
Iraq or Moammar Qaddafi's Libya brutally punishing players.

Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, autocratic
leaders have associated themselves with soccer, the only institution in
pre-revolt countries that traditionally evokes the same deep-seated passion as religion,
in a bid to polish their tarnished image. Prince Nawaf’s resignation
constitutes the first time, an autocratic regime seeks to put the beautiful
game at arm’s length while maintaining control because of the Saudi national
team’s poor performance. Saudi Arabia has dropped to the 126th place
in the ranking of world soccer body FIFA.

The kingdom’s ruling Al Saud family retained its grip on
sports however with Prince Nawaf staying on as head of the Saudi Olympic
Committee and the senior official responsible for youth welfare on which the
SFF depends alongside television broadcast rights for funding. Major soccer
clubs moreover continue to be the playground of princes who at times micro
manage matches by phoning mid-game their team's coaches with instructions which
players to replace.

In addition, sports remains a male prerogative in the arch
conservative kingdom. Saudi Arabia underlined its lack of intention to develop
women’s sports by last year engaging Spanish consultants to develop its first
ever national sports plan -- for men only.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Supporters of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad portrayed
this weekend’s winning of the West Asian soccer championship by defeating Iraq as
a unifying, national achievement against all odds. Yet, Syria’s success 22
months into an increasingly brutal civil war hardly constitutes the equivalent
of Iraq’s winning of the Asian Cup in 2007 at the peak of that country’s
sectarian violence. The Syrian national team, unlike its Iraqi counterpart five
years ago, is moreover incapable of offering Syrians any hope of an end to the
bloodshed and greater unity.

"I give this win and this worthy title to the Syrian
people. I thank God that we succeeded in bringing happiness to the sad
people," said Syrian striker Omar Al Soma in a televised interview after
the match.

Syrian state-run television, responding to news reports of a
power cut in Damascus, charged that "even football has not escaped the
bloodthirsty media, who tried to ruin the joy of our people after the victory
by broadcasting false information about a general power cut in Damascus, and
about clashes."

Opponents of Mr. Assad sought to diminish the symbolism of
the Syrian victory. "The team's victory has nothing to do either with the
president or with the rebels," said satiric Facebook page Shu Ismu? or
What is his name? "It is thanks to the 11 players who played and won this
victory for all the country. All the players are Syrian. Some are pro-regime,
some are anti-regime, and some are neutral," the page said.

Abu Bilal, an activist in Homs, Syria’s battered third
largest city and home to Abdelbasset Saroot, a crooning national youth team
goalkeeper, who has emerged in the last two years as a leader of the local
resistance, charged that Syrian forces intensified their shelling of rebel-held
parts of the city after the match’s final whistle in Kuwait. "They rained
down bombs on Old Homs," he said.

More fundamentally, any comparison to Iraq’s 2007 victory is
forced at best.

A dramatic penalty shoot-out with South Korea secured Iraq a
place in the Asian Cup final. Cheering fans in Baghdad paid the price. A
suicide bomber and celebratory gunfire killed 50. The team met to discuss
quitting. But after watching a news report where a bereaved woman, hysterical
after her son's death, begged them to continue in the memory of her child they
only had one choice.

Fate would produce the just result, they predicted, and
indeed it did.In a soccer fairy tale,
Iraq emerged against Saudi Arabia the winner of the Asian Cup. To win the game,
a Kurdish player passed the ball to a Sunni, who scored the decisive goal.
Meanwhile a Shiite goalkeeper held the opposing team scoreless to secure the
victory. The teamwork was at the time Iraqis’ only source of hope for a life
beyond conflict in a war-ravaged country devoid of good news and inclusive
institutions, a mirage of religious and ethnic harmony.

Iraqi national team players truly felt that they were
playing for their nation rather than for an autocratic leader who celebrated their
achievements for his own political benefit. Despite the sectarian violence
Iraqis had put neo-patriachism, the phrase coined by Palestinian-American
scholar Hisham Shirabi, behind them.

By contrast, Syrian players fall into two categories: those
that have internalized the neo-patriarchic notion of the autocratic leader as a
father figure and those that haven’t defected out of fear for the safety of
their families even if the war has reduced Syrian soccer to a shadow of itself.
Stadiums in this soccer-crazy country are empty and frequently used as staging
posts for pro-Assad forces or detention centers. Largely suspended, the Syrian
league has been reduced to four teams, two of which dropped out in the
2010/2011 championship. That pitted Syria’s two historically strongest team Al
Jaish (The Army) against its police counterpart, Al Shurta (The Police), who
represented the regime’s grip on the sport.

Al Jaish was for the longest time virtually synonymous with
the national team. National service was crucial to Al Jaish’s success. The
moment a talented young player came of age, the army conscripted him and he
played for Al Jaish. By sucking up the league's talent they won honors and
attracted huge crowds for years, while other clubs had to keep a lid on their
discontent.

Similarly, the shabiha, the irregular, civilian-clad, armed
groups blamed for many of the atrocities believed to have been committed by
forces loyal to Mr. Assad also trace their roots to soccer. In an account of
the history of the shabiha, whose designation derives from the Arabic word for
ghost, Syria expert Joshua Landis’ Syrian
Comment blog, traces their origins to members of the Assad family as well
as young, desolate Alawites in northern Syria who saw their escape from poverty
and humiliation in becoming wealthy and prestigious on the back of smuggling of
banned luxury goods from Lebanon and involvement in soccer.

While the term shabiha has come to mean thugs rather than
ghosts, the associated verb, shabaha, describes a goalkeeper, a shabih, jumping
into the air or going airborne to stop an opponent’s attack, according to
Syrian Comment. The shabih jumps and saves whether he was the soccer goalkeeper
or the smuggler who enabled his clients to jump in status with the goods he
provided.

Fawwaz al-Assad, a cousin of Bashar’s, widely viewed as the
original shabih who rose to control the lucrative port of Latakia and its
adjacent smuggling route, started as a fervent supporter of the city’s Tishreen
soccer team before becoming its president. Syrian Comment recalls Fawwaz driving
in “his big Mercedes” a demonstrative loop around the Al-Assad stadium before
sitting on a chair in a fenced off area track reserved for players and coaches
to watch a match.

“Always Fawwaz would have few words with the referee before
the game also. In one very famous incident Fawwaz took his gun out and let out
some shots. The game was between Hutteen and Tishreen and a forward scored on
an offside goal for Fawwaz’ team Tishreen. The referee in that famous incident
changed his mind after the gun shot to claim the goal in favor of Fawwaz’ team.
That made Fawwaz happier and he let out more shots. Fawwaz was a real bully and
acted like one,” Syrian Comment reported.

Strife in Syria has meanwhile forced some 50 players and
coaches into exile.

Lulu Shanku, a former national team player returned to his
Swedish premier league team Syrianska disgusted with the corruption in Syrian
soccer and the intimidation of players by the Assad regime.In some ways, he may have jumped from the
fire into the frying pan, illustrating the importance Arab autocrats attribute
to soccer even when it is played beyond the Middle East and North Africa. Power
within Shanku’s team rests with an Assyrian exile who served on Syrianska’s board
and now is its unelected head of security. A mechanic and failed gas station
owner who unabashedly defends Mr. Assad, he is believed to have ties to Syrian
intelligence and local crime groups.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Fordecadessoccerhasconstitutedanalternativepublicspace
intheMiddleEast.Largely unnoticedbyinternationalexperts,soccerprovidedavenuefortheexpressionofpent-up anger and frustration
againstauthoritarianism. By
the timethe
Arab
revolt
erupted
in December 2010, soccer had emerged as a key nonreligious,
nongovernmental institution capableof confrontingrepressiveregimes.NowherewasthismorepronouncedthaninEgypt,
wheremilitant, politicized,often violentultras—organizedclubs ofsoccer
fans—playeda key role in the protests that forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign in February 2011.
Since his resignation, Egyptianultrashavecontinuedto
playaprominentrole inEgyptianstreet politics.

The first uprising
in theregion erupted in Tunisia in December2010, after
the
self-
immolationof
MohamedBouazizi
inthetown
ofSidi
Bouzid. Observershave
notedthat this was notthefirsttimethatTunisians hadprotestedagainsttheauthoritarianregimeofZineEl AbidineBen Ali.Recentyearshad
witnessedstrikes,demonstrations,even otherinstancesof
self-immolation. In November 2010, weeks before the uprising,Tunisiansoccerfans
clashed with security forces after a tense
championship match between Esperance Sportive du
Tunis and TP Mazembefromthe
Democratic
Republic of Congo.

———.2012b.“RivalEgyptianUltrasWarn
Egypt’sMilitaryRulersinRareShowofUnity.”The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. March 14. Retrieved
October 2012
(mideastsoccer. blogspot.sg/2012/03/rival-egyptian-ultras-warn-egypts.html).

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile